On Jan. 14, less than one month after the departure of the first commercial flight from Key West to Havana in more than 50 years, another kind of U.S.-Cuba exchange will begin: the first cross-cultural gallery exchange in just as many decades.
In Havana, at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, the project (dubbed One Race, the Human Race) will kick off with an exhibition of work by the late Mario Sanchez — a selection of which can be seen below. Sanchez, a Key West folk artist, was a second-generation American descended from Cuban immigrants. Then, in February, Key West will host several of Cuba’s most prominent artists for residencies and exhibitions.
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Nance Frank, who curated the Sanchez show, says she knows that many Americans have an idea of Cuba that doesn’t include a booming arts scene, but that she hopes this exchange helps bring attention to a society that venerates artists in a way she hasn’t seen in the States, and allows them privileges not every Cuban has (for example, she says, they can accept foreign currency when selling their work). Her hopes are particularly high because it was so hard to pull off, especially when it came to insurance and getting permission from the U.S. government to bring Cuban artists to Florida. “Until I got off the plane in Havana with the [Sanchez] artwork, about a month ago,” she recalls, “I was holding my breath.”